Iraqi hostage threatened with beheading tomorrow

An Iraqi group holding seven foreign truck drivers hostage today threatened to kill one of the men within 24 hours if its demands were not immediately met.

The video, released to Arab TV, showed a masked man pointing a rifle at one of the hostages, who was wearing an orange garment similar to ones worn by previous foreign hostages that were killed.

The group, calling itself The Holders of the Black Banner, said last week it had kidnapped three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian and would begin beheading them last Saturday if the truck drivers’ employer did not cease business in Iraq and the hostages’ countries did not withdraw all their citizens from Iraq.

In other videos, the kidnappers added to their demands, but also appeared to extend the deadline.

The gunman in the video today said that no one had contacted the group so it would kill one of the hostages at 7pm on Friday (10pm Irish time) because they are “fighters who have supported the infidel occupier by transporting their supplies.”

The group did not specify which hostage it would kill.

The gunman said the truckers’ governments had ignored the threat against the men, and he scolded the Egyptian government for working for the release of an Egyptian diplomat who was freed on Monday, but doing little for the Egyptian driver.

More than 70 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq in recent months in an effort by insurgents to force foreign troops out of the country and to deter truck drivers and other workers involved in trade and reconstruction from coming.

The threat today came just hours after an insurgent group linked to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it had kidnapped a Somali truck driver and threatened to behead him if his Kuwaiti company didn’t stop working here.

Last night, another militant group that it had killed two Pakistani hostages.